India Independent: The Team

Indu (Indira) Chandrasekhar is publisher and managing editor of Tulika Books,

an independent publishing house based in New Delhi that publishes academic

books in the social sciences, arts and humanities. She began her publishing

career at Macmillan India in the early 1980s and worked for several years as a

freelance editor before setting up 

Tulika Books in 1995. Indu is a founding

partner of the Independent Publishers’ Distribution Alternatives (IPDA), a

member of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers (IAIP), and a

trustee of the Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation (SSAF).
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Leonard J Fernandes is the Co-Founder of Cinnamon Teal Design and

Publishing, India's first hybrid publishing service, of The Dogears Bookshop, a

curated bookshop in Margao, Goa, and of The Goa Book Fair and Children's

Literature Festival. He is also the co-founder of the Publishing Next Industry

Conference and Awards, and a founding

member of the Independent

Bookshops Association of India. Publishing Next Industry Conference and Awards, and a founding member of the

Independent Bookshops Association of India.
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Mandira Sen is director of Bhatkal and Sen that publishes two imprints from

Kolkata: Stree, Women’s Studies since 1990; and Samya, Dalit Writings and

Cultural Studies since 1996. She has worked for over fifty years in academic

publishing in the USA, UK and in India. She may be said to have pioneered Dalit

Studies, publishing first-time authors who have become successful. She has

taught in publishing courses at Jadavpur’s Edit Pub course, Calcutta

University’s course and also for the NBT.
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Manish Purohit is the co-founder of Authors UpFront, an independent

publisher and publishing services set-up. He has over 30 years of experience in

the world of publishing – newspapers,
magazines, and books. He has set up

and run publishing businesses and worked with leading brands such as The

Times of India, Business Standard, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Popular

Prakashan and Disney Publishing Worldwide. He also teaches media students

as visiting faculty.

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Radhika Menon founded the pioneering publishing house, Tulika Publishers in

1996. It is recognized in India and internationally, for its outstanding range of

multilingual children’s books. Inclusive and representative, the books in

different languages reflect cultural diversity in every respect. Tulika won

the International Excellence Award for Children’s and Young Adult’s Publishing

in 2022 and the International Excellence Award 

for Literary Translation

Initiative in 2019 at the London Book Fair. Radhika has served on the executive

committees of the National Book Trust (NBT), NCERT and the non-government

organisation, Eklavya.

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Ravi Singh is publisher and co-founder of Speaking Tiger Books, one of India’s

most distinctive independent publishing companies. He was also publisher and

editor-in-chief with Penguin Books India, co-publisher with Aleph Book

Company and features editor with Delhi Diary magazine. He has worked closely

with many of the finest authors writing from or about South Asia. Ravi is on the

advisory board of Majha House and Elsewhere Foundation, and Chintan

Environmental and Research Group.

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Ritu Menon is a feminist publisher and writer, with over 50 years’ experience

in major academic and trade presses. In 1984 she cofounded Kali for Women,

Asia’s first feminist press, and in 2003, she set up Women Unlimited, an

associate of KFW. She is the author and editor of over a dozen books, and is on

the advisory board of the Calcutta 

Research Group. She was awarded the

Padma Shri in 2011; a Gold Medal by the Asiatic Society of India in 2024; and

the IMPACT award in 2019 by the IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

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Sudhanva Deshpande is a publisher, author and actor. Since 1998, he has been

Managing Editor at LeftWord Books, and since 2017 at Vaam Prakashan, both

imprints of New Delhi-based Naya Rasta Publishers, and founder of May Day

Bookstore. He has held teaching positions at the National Institute of Design,

Ahmedabad, and at the AJK 

Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia

Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He is the author of Halla Bol: The Death and Life of

Safdar Hashmi (LeftWord, 2020).

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Swati Daftuar is an independent editor, writer, and literary curator with over

15 years of experience in publishing and media. She is currently a Consulting

Editor at Speaking Tiger Books. Previously, she was Deputy Editor for The

Hindu’s Books vertical and Executive Editor at HarperCollins India, where she

led the commercial fiction list and worked with some of India’s most widely

read authors. She also curates The Bookshop Bookclub.

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